July 31, 2006--An abandoned dog

Yesterday morning (Sunday) we were eating breakfast and we looked out the back window and saw there was a dog back there with Pippen. They were lying really close. Jay went out to see it, and came back to tell us that the dogs were tangled together--someone had chained the dog up to our stake! I called my family to see if they knew anyone who owned a dog like that, and my sister (16) was the only one who was up. She told me that a neighbor girl didn't know whose it was and was asking Dad if we had gotten another dog, and that Dad had told the girl to tie it up with ours so it wouldn't go into the highway and get killed. I was confused as to why Dad would say that, but I told my sister that it would be better to tie it up to their stake since ours already had a dog on it and theirs didn't. If Dad was concerned about the dog getting hit, we would take it over there. So I sent my son over to chain the dog up on their stake. A few minutes later, my mom called and she was very mad at us for sending over a dog to wake them up at 7:30 on a Sunday morning after they had been up until 2 a.m the night before. I figured they'd be up by then, after all, my dad is a pastor and had to preach yesterday. I told her what Susie had said, and she said that Dad did not tell her to chain the dog up here, that he had told the neighbor girl to go over and ask us if it was our dog. Well, it turned out that someone had abandoned the dog at our house and had chained him up with our dog. The neighbor girl had seen the dog and had taken it over to my parents to ask whose it was. We were at Lake Michigan all day Saturday, so we didn't know about any of this until Sunday. Anyway, my dad had said that he didn't think we had gotten another dog, but to go put it back where she found it. Apparently he misunderstood it was tied up with ours. The poor dogs were so tangled they were neck to neck and couldn't get away from each other. My mom called the animal warden, but he didn't work on Sundays. He was going to come get it this morning. Then last night some teenage boys were walking through the neighborhood and had stopped to pet this dog, and my mom said, "Hey, you can have him for $5." The boys were really excited and went to ask their parents. They came back to take the dog home with them, and asked if they could pay for it later. Mom and Dad told them they didn't have to pay for it, and they took the dog home. So the dog didn't end up dead on the highway or at the pound and got a home after all.